Field
The present invention relates to program data associated with service providers, and more particularly to systems, methods, and computer program products for storing and managing said program data.
Related Art
A service provider is a company, organization, entity, or the like, that provides services to consumers. Examples of service providers include entities such as merchants, retail stores, membership clubs, card associations, banks, marketing companies, and transit authorities. A service can be in the form of an activity, capability, functionality, work, or use. Specific examples of services include payment services, ticketing services, offer or loyalty services, transit pass services, and the like. A consumer may use a service via a mobile device, for example, by utilizing one or more mobile software applications that enable that service.
A mobile device enables a service through a transaction, an exchange of information between the mobile device and the service provider. Transactions involving mobile devices commonly relate to payment services and may involve the exchange of payment information and/or commerce information. Payment information is information that enables a consumer to make a payment for a service or product. Examples include credit card numbers, bank account information, virtual currency information, and the like. Commerce information is information other than payment information that affects a payment and/or contactless transaction, such as a coupon, promotional code, credit, gift voucher, loyalty information, and the like.
Transactions involving mobile devices and service providers, including those involving payment services, often require a mobile device to interface with a terminal such as a point of sale system, reader terminal, scanner, wireless hotspot, or the like. A terminal is associated with a service provider and may be located at a service provider's brick and mortar location.
It is common for mobile devices to perform contactless transactions with the terminal. Contactless transactions are transactions in which information exchange occurs between the mobile device and the terminal when they are positioned within certain proximity of each other, generally less than ten centimeters apart. Contactless transactions are made possible by standards-based wireless communication technologies, one common example being near field communications (NFC) technology.
In a mobile environment involving transactions between mobile devices and service providers, service providers may issue program data to the mobile devices to enable the mobile devices to perform the transactions.
Program data is information that enables, authorizes, augments or otherwise affects the use of a service. In the context of payment services, program data includes commerce information such as the above-mentioned coupons, promotional codes, credits, and the like. Other examples of program data may include user identifiers, access credentials, membership information, loyalty information, eligibility or subscription status, points, and the like.
For example, a store may allow for contactless commerce and/or payment transactions to enable a customer to pay for goods sold at the store using a mobile device. That same store may offer a loyalty program service in which customers, for example, are rewarded with discounts on goods when making a payment. In order to enable the loyalty program service, the store may issue program data to be stored on the customer's mobile device, in this case as commerce information in the form of a loyalty number. A contactless transaction may then involve the exchange of one or both the loyalty number and payment information (e.g., a credit card number) between the mobile device and a point-of-sale (POS) terminal at one of the store's brick and mortar locations.
Service providers often operate under several different names or entities. For example, a parent company (e.g., Company X) may own and operate several different stores with different brand names (e.g., Brand A Store, Brand B Store and Brand C Store). The parent company may provide the same services (e.g., loyalty program) at each of its branded stores. Also, each branded store may provide its own unique services (e.g., loyalty program). In many instances, a consumer may not be aware of the fact that a branded store falls under a common parent company or that two different branded stores provide compatible services. For example, each branded store operating under Company X may offer its own loyalty membership in addition to accepting loyalty memberships provided by any of the other Company X operated stores. A consumer may not be aware of the fact that it is possible to use a loyalty membership number for a Brand A store in a transaction at a Brand B store. As such, requiring a user to determine which program data applies to a given service and/or requiring a user to manually elect to apply program data to services can often result in missed opportunities to enable or affect a service. Thus, there is a need to automatically apply program data to compatible or associated service providers.
Typically, in order to apply compatible program data to a transaction (e.g., program data that is associated with and/or may be used by the service provider with which a transaction is being made), a mobile device receives a service provider identifier (ID) from the terminal and determines whether or not program data stored on the mobile device matches or is associated with the service provider ID. Using such an approach to apply compatible program data to a transaction requires several processing steps to be executed by the mobile device and terminal. Alternatively, if the mobile device transmits all compatible program data to the terminal, additional processing is required by the mobile device and terminal to collect and subsequently determine which program data to apply to a transaction. In instances where the mobile device stores large volumes of program data, such additional processing can result in significant delays in transaction times and can diminish usability.
Thus, one technical challenge involves minimizing the transaction time and resources required to identifying compatible program data among multiple sets of program data stored on a mobile device and to applying that compatible program data to a transaction without the need for manual end-user input. There is a need, therefore, for systems, methods and computer program products for identifying and matching program data to service provider IDs that utilize a condensed format service provider ID having both generic and specific components.